Seems to me a certain House Representative back in the 1950s pioneered this method.

Not once have I ever witnessed a person walking down the street and ask their phone a question.

My now-5-year-old son was also diagnosed as a high functioning autistic, and both me and my wife have many of the traits, with regards to social anxiety and language delays as youths, but neither diagnosed. Born 3 weeks premature, he was always on a track for monitoring. At age 2, he spoke about 10 words, was touch sensitive (hated anything loud or sticky), and got the diagnosis then. I myself was in denial for a while, thinking why did it have to happen to him, he's just a little behind, it will come. I had the same perspective, that every little accomplishment meant the condition was over. But as time went on, it didn't. At age 3, he qualified for our school district's Intermediate Unit, and began pre-school classes 4 days a week.

He will "grow out of it" by constant reinforcement and occupational training, both in school and at home. If you assume it will go away on its own, you are doing a disservice to your child. Find the things that he likes, and use it as a example to teach social skills. Remain calm, because he doesn't know why he does things either. It's a constant battle, where every waking hour of the day is reinforcing "good choices" and being mindful of other people's perspectives and feelings.

Is there a maturity factor, the "growing out of it"? Probably some percent. I wonder all the time, was he inattentive because he's just a 4-year-old boy? No one is born with social skills, so is it my fault? Was I the bad teacher? We recognized that my son wasn't developing eye contact skills, and my wife and I were indirectly enabling this behavior -- he would shout a question across the room, and we would answer it without requiring facial contact. Once we recognized this, we created a plan and broke him of the habit ("I'm sorry, I can't see your eyes . . ."). I wouldn't need to worry about this with my nephews, but my son didn't have that instinct for facial confirmation.

Today at 5 years old, I can't get him to shut up. He is constantly asking questions, and is what anyone would now recognize as an over-average-intelligence child. He is reading at a 2nd grade level, knows basic multiplication, adds and subtracts up to thousands in English, and counts to 100 in Spanish. He loves playing as the "GPS" when we drive, telling us what roads are coming up next and reading every sign.

You are a good parent just by recognizing there's an issue. If this disease really is genetic like current research is showing, there's nothing anyone could have done to prevent it, it's all dependent on how we respond to it. And whether you get a diagnosis for yourself or not isn't a reflection on your parents, it's just your own "medical state". But ask yourself, what can you do with that information? We refuse to let autism be a crutch to excuse away bad behavior for our son. If you have it, or I have it, how can we focus our efforts more productively? If you feel like you have social anxiety, maybe you can push yourself into uncomfortable or unusual situations to (as I was told) "flex those social muscles". The more you practice it, the better you will get. Then it really doesn't matter what the diagnosis could have been at the end of the day, because that doesn't have to be you today.

Sodium and Chlorine being dumped on our roads when it snows? The horror.

From the "Second Amendment" point of view- if the government has drones that can fire missiles, why shouldn't we have drones that can fire handguns?

Still, I dislike the engineering method of this. I think there's a far better way to do it, there is no need for a grip or trigger on a mounted gun, that's just extra weight.

I guarantee if the market share of Windows and Linux were switched, you would see just as much malware.

"Enlightenment" is just another name for blowing your mind out on drugs until you can't tell the difference between right and wrong and can't remember history.

The "might makes right" crowd is on your side of "progress"- that's why they keep killing children in the womb and selling their body parts online.

I care about none of those things. Youtube uses html 5 just fine.

That doesn't sound like progress to me. That sounds like regression to where we were circa 8000 BCE.

"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."- Justice Kennedy in PPvCasey, 1992, explaining why his future self would push for gay marriage.

Seems like "Progress" is rather primitive to me- it's just the right to live out a fantasy in defiance of objective reality.

to be made by someone other than the lowest bidder.

I read recently that the Allies made a policy of not telling about the decryption until long after the war, apparently so everyone would think we won by valor rather than by cheating. But what's (perversely) funny is that the UK rounded up as many machines as they could and "donated" them to third- world countries so that they, too, could enjoy the benefits of strong encryption.

Start countdown to baby boom in 9 months.

You're a whiny zealot. Companies don't cooperate with you folks because no matter what you will bitch and cry about something. So in the end its easier to just not deal with the one in a million Linux users.